71. Rope (1948) - Alfred Hitchcock

Rope (1948) - Alfred HitchcockTwo young men strangle their "inferior" classmate, hide his body in their apartment, and invite his friends and family to a dinner party as a means to challenge the "perfection" of their crime. Just the second of many Alfred Hitchcock movies on this list but probably the most unknown film from the Top 100. Rope takes place in one single apartment where our two leads Brandon (John Dall) and Phillip (Farley Grainger) have just commited a murder (by rope strangulation) of one of a fellow college student and are holding a party to celebrate their dastardly act. In typical Hitchcock humour, they stuff the body of their college inside a chest and place the food for the party on top of it and invite several people who were involved in the dead guy's life (including his girlfriend and father) for the pure thrill of having the people who cared about him most present in a secret celebration of his murder. However things don't go to smoothly as thier student lecturer Rupert (James Stewart) becomes suspicious of the hosts actions and slowly begins to unravel the truth of what happened to the dead student. Hitchcock loved to experiment with new techniques and innovations and Rope is certainly a testament to that. It's shot on one location, with a small bunch of actors and shot in a way to make the audience believe it's one continuous shot with no cuts (it's not quite one shot but still a great achivement). Rope has often been criticsed for it's lack of mystery as you see the murder occur in the opening 60 seconds but I would suggest that it doesn't make the movie any less suspenseful than his other masterpieces. You watch as the two leads get more and more desperate about getting caught and Hitchcock manages to grab your suspense by the frequent number of times the chest is nearly opened to reveal the body inside. A great movie from Hitchcock which reminds me somewhat of a Columbo episode (love that show).